Just a word now and then about working in a prison and for the Department Of Corrections. Plus a good bit of ranting here and there.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

More Monkeys!

Yargh! Some nights I come home and I have my post written already in my head by the time I pull in the driveway. I can't wait to sit down so I can pour it all out of my head and into you poor unsuspecting souls.

Then some nights, like tonight, I just sit here and there's nothing.

Things happened. Stupid stuff happened. Inmates got locked up. The Captain managed to piss me off and hurt my feelings just a little bit which pissed me off even more.

Luckily none of us got hurt and we all got to go home safe.

Well, those of us who didn't get held over to work a double got to go home, anyway. We are critically short of staff and some of the directives coming down are making that even worse.

We are all going to be working alot more overtime.

But I sit here and try to put the events of tonight in some sort of logical order or even coherent sentences and I got nothing. It's all just a mish-mash in my head right now.

I was hoping a little "free association" would help bring things a little clarity.

But that doesn't seem to be working.

I need more monkeys and more typewriters over here, ASAP!

In the meantime, I'll just slide over to the calendar like that was what I intended to do in the first place.

Saturday is going to be National Hoagie Day, Cartoonists Day, Kentucky Derby Day, National Homebrew Day and Scrapbooking Day.

11 comments:

On the BBC (radio) they said it would be National Scrapbook day soon, and I thought to check your post to see if you mentioned it. Bingo! Having too much time on my hands, I discovered http://www.ukscrappers.co.uk/ which doesn't mention it on their home page. It worries me if we are going to synchronise national days. I don't take it kindly when I am given thanksgiving day greetings, or (worse) July 4th. It's bad enough that we have children trick-or-treating at Hallowe'e'n (unless we invented the practice, in which case it's all right, one of our more successful exports).

I love being a ranting curmudgeon. It suits me. Americans are the perfect targets. (Note to Dept of Homeland Security: if you can read this, you don't have enough to do.)

Well that's the Internet for you, and our common ownership of the English language - they forget it's different here. I'm polite back. I say that for us, July 4th is not a celebration, it's an occasion for grief, that we lost our favourite colony. Whereas in truth ...

Yes Hallowe'e'n with the apostrophes was invented here, but not, I think, the trick-or-treat, and probably not the carved pumpkins, fancy-dress-for-sale at supermarkets and general child-hysteria.

Our traditional fireworks parties and other traditions are related to November 5th, Guy Fawkes Day. It started I think pretty much by Government decree. In 1605 Guido Fawkes tried to blow up the House of Parliament with gunpowder, because he was a Catholic, and the Catholics were assumed to be supporters of Spain, and were being treated like Al Q'aida in consequence; so they thought, let's behave like Al Q'Aida. Well they didn't have Guantanamo Bay, they just had torture, and then hanging, drawing and quartering. Since they didn't have the modern media either, it was ordered that Fawkes should be burned in effigy every year as a warning against future treason.

Four hundred years later it's still being done. But another practice familiar in my youth is less so today. Boys would make their own crude effigy and tout it around in a pram or wooden go-cart and accost passers-by with "Penny for the guy, Mister!" or more elaborately would chant, "Remember remember, it's Fifth of November, Gunpowder, Treason & Plot!" etc.

But there's no market for Guy Fawkes cards, only the fireworks that they start selling a couple of weeks beforehand. It was these that the boys spent their penny-for-the-guy on.

Vincent- I don't know how I forgot to mention Guy Fawkes Day. Like I said, I was having some connectivity issues in my brain. And I'll try to be prudent in wishing anyone July 4th greetings. But I can't promise anything.

And I do need to mention that "V For Vendetta" is one of my favorite movies.

Yep; one of the things that keeps me alive - one of these days will figure out whether am proud of it - or not.Might see if i get that on a tombstone - "Here lays "undecided" (tend to avoid 'lies' - tho sometimes i can get away with it ... heh).